Reduplication and Imperfectivity in Jejara (Para Naga)

Abstract

Jejara is a language spoken in the Naga Hills in Northwest Myanmar by the Jejara people, also known as Para Naga. The peoples identified as Naga represent linguistically at least two distinct Tibeto-Burman branches, Mizo-Kuki-Chin and Bodo-Konyak-Jinghpaw (Burling 2003:174). It is not unique to find that Jejara indicates imperfectivity by a postverbal particle. Its form is lu. This particle indicates the ongoing nature of the state or activity encoded by a main verb. What is interesting is to find verbal reduplication as another form used to encode aspectual elements such as imperfectivity. In Jejara, verbal reduplication indicates aspectual information in two particular syntactic environments: preceding the main verb or following it. Two different semantic results, durative and resultative, are indicated by the reduplication, depending on its position: a durative aspect of the reduplicated verb and an ongoing change of state entered into as a result of the completion of the action encoded by the main verb. The thread of commonality which unites the two positions is that both encode aspectual information.